{make do monday: the b word...budgeting}

{When it comes to budgeting, I think most of us fall into two main categories. Those who relish each penny saved and those just plain feel deprived and miserable when penny pinching. I think there are also those who like to swing between the two depending on the day. That would be me :) For the most part lately, I have been very spending conscious and loving it! Hubs and I recently looked over our spending and quite honestly were appalled at the amount of money had been wasted through out the month. As we get closer to baby coming and me staying at home, we are really cinching up the purse strings, partly so we can save as much as possible, and so we can get some new furniture and prepare for our little one, but also to start learning how to live on a verrry tight budget. The motivation of staying at home with my child and not having to work really helps me to become creative and find ways to use what we already have, or upcycle as much as possible. I'm actually pretty proud of how well we have been doing this month! I started tracking our spending in a ledger and hubs put a new cute little cash system keeper thingy in my Easter basket! It has been great! We are doing a cash system for groceries and it has been working so well! I went to the produce stand for this weeks produce and had $18 left of my budget for the 2 week pay period and wouldn't you know it...everything I picked out to buy rang up at $17.99!! Heck yeah!}

{Sadly, budgeting does mean there will be less of this in my life...(see the beautiful latte above :) Not none, just less! But that's ok. i feel like I am already becoming a mother and sacrificing the things I feel are unnecessary or wasteful. And I'm totally ok with that! It feels good to be wise with our money and to be good stewards. It allows us to trust that the Lord will provide for our needs even when we can't see how He will do it! So on this note I want to say that I hope to be sharing more in the near future about our budgeting journey and share little tips and secrets I learn along the way! I recently came across the Tightwad Gazette series of 3 books and they are amazing! This lady is hardcore! I don't think I'll be quite as committed as she is, but it is totally inspiring and full of some really creative ideas! One of my first little ventures has been to save all our containers from yogurt and such. We needed tupperware but I didn't want to spend the moo-lah. It's the little things like that, that really help in the long run! I also have grand plans to redo our apartment on a very tight budget and so far have done a few projects with stuff I had tucked away in my craft closet!

{Here is a peek of one of those projects! So with that said I want to introduce a new feature I am excited about! I haven't lived in an apartment in quite some time and am in the process of turning this weird windowless place into our home. So to document this transformation and share some ideas with my fellow apartment dwellers, I will be writing "Apart{ment} of my heart" every Thursday. I'm pretty excited about this and I'm excited to see how our little home turns out! I am in the process of documenting before pictures to share through out the transformation. So stay tuned friends!}

{I hope all you Mamas out there had a great Mothers Day! I know I did!}

.::ali::.